Month: May 2016

Most bike shops in Australia are independent retailers operating as sole traders, and even the ones who are dealers for major brands like Specialized are still one-off local retail outlets. A few chains are starting to emerge like 99Bikes but the market in Australia remains fragmented and ‘local’. These small business operators are realistic enough to understand the online marketplace but there’s a number of reasons why you should continue to support them even if you do some of your purchasing online. Because it might not be there when you need help Put simply, if everyone did all their purchasing

I recently touched base with Australian road & track cyclist Nettie Edmondson who is firmly focused on track cycling gold in Rio. I had the pleasure of meeting Nettie for the first time about four years ago and soon after wrote my first post about her. By coincidence one my friend’s daughters Keira, who is a keen track & road cyclist herself, is a huge fan of Nettie’s. So last year when we all visited Adelaide for the Tour Down Under I arranged for us to meet up with Nettie. Keira is pictured here with her hero. I was really

When I started riding a road bike about seven and a half years ago, I had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way of climbing hills on a road bike. I just rode up them and put up with the pain in my legs and lungs. In some cases I even avoided the steeper ones by riding a different route. Over the years I’ve learned about the physical side of hill climbing but only recently have a focused more on the mental side of climbing. In doing this I’ve realised that my negative thoughts are the

It seems appropriate that during the great race in Italy, we reflect on the only woman who rode the Giro d’Italia. She was a very plucky Italian cyclist named Alfonsina Strada who rode the 3,613 km Giro d’Italia way back in 1924. She’s the only woman who’s ever ridden one of the grand tours alongside the men. Here’s my abridged version of her story. Alfonsina was born in northern Italy in the late 1800s and won her first bike race at the age of 13, winning a live pig. When she was 24 she married Luigi Strada, who give her

Lots of women tell me that the reason they don’t want to ride a bike is because they don’t feel safe on Sydney’s roads. Therefore they seek out opportunities to ride on bike paths so they can avoid interacting with cars. Interestingly the more experienced I become as a cyclist, the more I prefer riding on the road, rather than bike paths. I find that most Sydney bike paths (and there aren’t that many of them) are cluttered with pedestrians listening to loud music via small bud earphones, dog walkers, slower bike riders and small children on bikes. All of